


Enlightenment

by saltedlime



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Philosophy, Season/Series 02, Someone Help Will Graham, Wendigo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-07
Updated: 2016-10-07
Packaged: 2018-08-20 01:56:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,063
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8232082
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saltedlime/pseuds/saltedlime
Summary: "It’s an infuriating façade of comforting normalcy. Will feels his despair creep up on him in slow increments until he is practically vibrating with it and he places his wine glass down, hard, the crystal ringing in the air from the force."An exploration of Will's turmoil in accepting the humane and monstrous facets of Hannibal. Takes place some time around the second half of season 2, before Mizumono.





	

It happens abruptly in the steel sanctuary of Hannibal’s kitchen. Mind slackened with wine, Will watches across the kitchen island as Hannibal meticulously juliennes carrots into even sticks. The soft whispers of Beethoven float through the room, melding with the sizzling of butter and _thunk_ of knife against wood. It’s an infuriating façade of comforting normalcy. Will feels his despair creep up on him in slow increments until he is practically vibrating with it and he places his wine glass down, hard, the crystal ringing in the air from the force. 

The knife stops. Hannibal flicks his gaze upwards.

“Is something wrong, Will?”

“Stop,” Will breathes. It feels as if the word is wrung viciously out of him. His internal-self screams and claws at the gentle fan of hair against Hannibal’s forehead, left unkempt in a rare moment of informality. Relaxed. “Stop it.” 

A pause.

Slowly, like Will is a wild, nervous thing, Hannibal sets down his knife and turns off the stove.

Hannibal starts to walk towards Will when the latter suddenly moves. Will rounds the island quickly and shoves Hannibal back against the steel-topped bench. A pepper mill clatters to the ground, its contents spilling out onto the tiled floor. Will trembles, hands fisted in the fabric of Hannibal’s shirt, heaving for breath. He glances up into an expression of manufactured and appropriate concern and his blood roils like waves in his ears.

“Will-” 

“Don’t. Don’t you dare.”

Hannibal falls silent but something dark flits across his face, the shapeless silhouette of a beast passing through a cloak of forest trees. It is a lapse from a mask of emotion and Will feels an intense longing to chase after it and press his hands into the gap left behind - pry, bend, and snap the slats of tightly closed shutters. The desire paws at the recesses of his mind, whining. Slowly, he unclenches his fists and lays his palms flat against Hannibal’s chest. The heart beating steadily underneath leaves him feeling unmoored.

In his mind’s eye, Will feels the heavy weight of the wendigo’s gaze. It tilts its head, reptilian, eyes unblinking, and he imagines smoothing his hand over the scorching cold of its charcoal skin. The chill is smothering.

In reality his hands glide upwards, his skin rasping against stiff, pressed cotton. He can feel heat seeping into his own fingertips and the juxtaposition leaves him dizzy. Hannibal remains obediently unmoving and Will wrestles with the emotions of terror and awe that threaten to spill like tar from his parted lips. He reaches the base of Hannibal’s neck and the feeling of _life_ makes the fine hairs on Will’s forearms stand on end in gooseflesh: the slight tackiness of oil and sweat, the tremble of inhalation and exhalation, the pulse of blood through shallow veins. 

“I am finding it hard to reconcile my perceptions of you,” Will whispers, the words slipping out unchecked and uncensored. He thumbs at the skin of Hannibal’s Adam’s apple and watches it bob as Hannibal swallows. “The expectations of what I imagine you to be.”

“Does it frighten you, that your perceptions of me lie incongruous with your expectations?” Hannibal inclines his head minutely. “The expectations of others?”

 _“-of you”_ , is unsaid, but hangs heavily in the space between them. The muscles in Will’s jaw work, agitated, but he remains silent.

Hannibal is watching him, eyes heavy-lidded. “What do you perceive me to be, Will?”

_Serpentine. Belly black and waxen, pressed close to the ground. A body of muscle binding together an endless cage of ribs that undulate, hypnotic, like a whisper in the grass. Unblinking eyes with a sheen like glass and a flickering tongue to scent the air. Old skins are left behind, white and ghostly. Predatory. Cold. And yet…_

Will’s hands resume their exploration tentatively: the light chafe of emerging stubble when he cradles a strong jaw, the brush of heat across his knuckles from coloured cheeks and high cheekbones. A gentle puff of breath ghosts across his face, smelling of mulled wine, when he drags his thumbs over Hannibal’s eyes to coax them closed. Like closing the eyes of the dead. Thoughts of pressing down in frustration, sinking his fingers deep behind the balls of Hannibal’s eyes to feel what lives behind them, catch in the snares of Will’s imagination. He shakes them out and violently pushes them away as quickly as they were hooked. Hannibal waits, unseeing beneath Will’s fingers, and the gravitas of the trust in the action slams bodily into Will’s guts. He does not want to name the feeling that bubbles up past the constricted muscle of his throat nor look at the knife lying next to Hannibal’s hand, braced against the countertop.

“I see myself chained in the bowels of a cave,” Will says finally, “and all I can see is your shadow as it passes, intangible, like a wraith across the illumination of the innermost wall. I can’t hear you, just the echoes of your voice.”

The admission stings. He moves his thumbs and Hannibal’s eyes blink open. The look he fixes Will is raw and frightening, filled with indiscernible emotion. Will’s hands jerk back, startled, but Hannibal catches his wrists mid-recoil. Will sways with the sudden feeling of vertigo and he almost leans forward into the touch in a desperate scramble for stability. Self-preservation keeps him steady, but Hannibal’s face is too close and Will can see the snarling, hungry maw of whatever lies imprisoned behind the opaque walls of the other’s eyes.

“Plato,” Hannibal murmurs. Will nods stiffly and faintly wonders if Hannibal’s eyes had always been so dark.

The responding rumble of approval travels like a shock to his body, hot and unbidden down his spine. He’s still grappling for words when Hannibal’s face moves, lips brushing reverently at his jaw before nosing at the shell of his ear. It is intimate and terrifying all at once and he can see the cold, pitch-black body coil around him, protective and hungry. His wrists are burning.

Hannibal’s voice is low in his ear. “I unchained you a long time ago, Will. All you must do is step out into the light and look.”

And when Hannibal’s lips press against his, Will is no longer sure if the growling and terrified echoes that reverberate off the walls in his mind are Hannibal’s or his own.

**Author's Note:**

> I haven't written any proper fiction in 5 years: I'm rusty, as it where, and somewhat green behind the ears, especially with how ao3 works. But I've anguished over putting my love for this show into writing, so here it is.
> 
> A few notes:  
> 1\. I love philosophy and science - Will references the idea of Plato's Cave (look it up!). I found it fitting for the feeling I wanted to convey here.  
> 2\. I am a sucker for metaphor. If it becomes obnoxious, please let me know.


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